Star Field Reduction

[Radders]

Hi, 

Has anyone got any good guides or plug-ins for reducing the number of stars in a star field using PS? I imaged the Rosette Nebula the other night but find the number of stars distracting from the Nebula. 

 

Thanks. 

[Adreneline]

At the extreme you can remove the stars completely using the Windows release of Starnet++; it works standalone or as a Process in PixInsight (if you have it) - it's free to download.

I use Annie's Astro Actions to (a) reduce stars in a PS image or (b) to remove them completely - costs about £15.

HTH

Adrian

[Radders]

Thank you, I'll have a look at Annie's Astro Actions 👍🏻

[wimvb]

With starnet you can remove the stars from the image and the paste them back in from a less stretched copy. This will allow you to deemphasize stars as much as you like. 

[TerryMcK]

+1 from me for Annie’s Astro Actions

[Radders]

Paid for and downloaded Annie's Astro Actions last night and had a quick process of my Rosette Nebula, the star reduction tool definitely works!

Thanks.

[Frank the Troll]

On 23/02/2020 at 10:16, Adreneline said:

 

I use Annie's Astro Actions to (a) reduce stars in a PS image or (b) to remove them completely - costs about £15.

HTH

Adrian

Would these work with either affinity  photo or gimp ?

Cheers

Frank

[PeterCPC]

43 minutes ago, Frank the Troll said:

Would these work with either affinity  photo or gimp ?

Cheers

Frank

Annie's Actions - Not affinity - don't know about Gimp.

Peter

[Frank the Troll]

46 minutes ago, PeterCPC said:

Annie's Actions - Not affinity - don't know about Gimp.

Peter

If Seems Annies Actions are for PS, and after checking, Affinity can import PS plugins

[happy-kat]

Action scripts from PS only work on PS. Plugins are different and can work in PSP though I don't know if they would in GIMP, they have to be same bit though. 32 bit plugin will not work in 64bit app etc

[Peakedge]

Both Starnet and Annies Actions are very good; Starnet to remove stars so the you can stretch an image without blowing them out, and Annies actions to reduce them. Starnet is free and standalone, and Annies Actions for PS. Both are an integral part of my processing.

 

Davis

[ollypenrice]

Once you've removed stars you can paste the linear image on top of the starless stretched one in Ps Blend Mode Lighten. Initialy it will be invisible. You can then stretch the top layer and the stars will begin to appear. Stop stretching at any point you like.

Olly

[gorann]

Just be aware that with Annie's Actions and other star shrinking PS plug ins (Like RC-Astro Star Shrink or Astronomy Tools), you risk introducing odd looking artifcts especially for stars close together. You can run Annie's star reductions several times but zoom in and pixel-peep to check. Where it looks too odd you can add a layer mask to the action and use the brush tool to remove the bad ones.